‘Crazy, crazy' days of campaigning

No one can accuse Philip Cortez of having an easy path to the Legislature.

Cortez, a former Southwest Side councilman, survived a yearlong gantlet of well-funded opposition and redistricting chaos in his quest to win the District 117 state representative seat held by freshman Republican John Garza.

He narrowly escaped a three-way Democratic primary contest, pulled off a hard-earned run-off win over local attorney Tina Torres, and finally triumphed Tuesday over Garza.

“It was a crazy, crazy election year, and it's definitely one way to cut your teeth in state politics,” Cortez said. “My mindset was just trying to get in front of as many residents and families as possible. That's what I was able to do in the primary and I just kept doing that in the general.”

Cortez, 34, had his eye on the District 117 seat as far back as 2009, when he briefly considered resigning from the City Council to challenge fellow Democrat David Leibowitz. Cortez's 2012 campaign was knocked off stride early when Annie's List — a deep-pocketed Austin political action committee that recruits and funds Democratic women to run for the Legislature — convinced Torres to enter the Democratic primary in District 117.

Ultimately, ethics questions torpedoed the campaigns of both Torres and Garza.

In the final weeks of his runoff campaign against Torres, Cortez hired a private detective to trail and videotape Torres, to determine whether she lived in the district, or the home she owns near Stone Oak.

While Torres supporters described Cortez's surveillance efforts as “creepy,” her campaign never recovered.

Garza, 57, found himself forced to explain a $4,000 payment in 2011 from his campaign to his wife, Debra, for “campaign services,” as well as a $900 family dinner and clothing purchases charged to his campaign.

When confronted with the issue, Garza reimbursed his campaign for the expenditures.

Garza, who stunned even many Republican by unseating Leibowitz in the 2010 GOP tsunami election, chalked up his defeat to party politics outside his control.

“I think (Mayor Julián Castro's) Pre-K initiative hurt us,” Garza said. “It really brought the turnout that we didn't expect, and (President Barack) Obama made a comeback in the last two weeks of the race.”

Garza added that Cortez “ran a pretty negative campaign against me, so that probably hurt us a little bit too.”

Cortez also gained traction by blasting Garza for supporting $5.4 billion in school funding cuts during the 2011 legislative session.

“There was no question that education is an issue that both Republicans and Democrats care about,” Cortez said. “There were families that were very upset with the vote that John Garza took to make those education cuts, and they let him know it.”

Garza said he holds out hope that the district may swing back into the GOP column in the near future and said he's open to the possibility of running again.